


kings of the sun and stars

by adrianicsea



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone Is Gay, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-11 00:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12311361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adrianicsea/pseuds/adrianicsea
Summary: After the War of Deliverance, Peter reflects on the rewards Aslan gave him for his loyal service.





	kings of the sun and stars

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally part of my "Rewards" series, a four-part canon-divergent series allowing each of the Pevensies to have the happy ending in Narnia that I feel they deserved. After EXTENSIVE revision and rewriting, this piece no longer fits within the Rewards series, but I am leaving it here on the Archive for all the readers who have enjoyed it. Nothing else has been modified in this piece except its removal from the Rewards series. Thank you all for reading, and if you're interested, I'd love it if you checked out the work that replaced this one in the Rewards series! It's MUCH longer and has more of everything-- more Caspeter, more Pevensie family drama, more Aslan, more dialogue, more worldbuilding. It was very much a labor of love, so it would mean a lot to me if you gave it a read!

It’s Peter who gets it first. Fitting, perhaps, that the firstborn, the High King, the one who fought the hardest and led the longest in Aslan’s name, should be the first to find his reward.

“You have earned the right to stay,” Aslan had said to him, the night before Caspian’s coronation, “if you so choose.”

And, of course, Peter had. Contrary to what Susan thought, Narnia was where they belonged, Peter knew. He had felt fleetingly selfish for staying behind when the others could not, but, he reminded himself, Edmund and Lucy had been promised to return. That Susan chose England over Narnia, declining Aslan’s offer, was _her_ choice.

Peter, though—Peter was _home._

Home feels smaller now, the way his house back in England did when they were finally allowed to come home from the countryside. When you grow up somewhere, Peter thinks, it’s only natural that it starts to feel smaller as you grow bigger. And even though Peter is small again here, and the world has grown wild, vast and dark in his absence, Narnia still feels cozier than his old bedroom ever did.

He sets himself about learning the world all over again—which he has the time and the resources to do, now that Caspian is king. When Caspian first learned Peter was staying, he had begged Peter to assume the throne, to lift the heavy burden of the crown from his head and raise Narnia to new heights. Peter had refused… Not because he didn’t want to resume his rule (oh, he _had,_ and it had burned away in him like a flame), but because he knew Caspian deserved his chance. Peter trusted him to be a good king.

Besides, Peter had said, seizing the crown at what everyone expected to be Caspian’s coronation would come a little too close to tyranny for his liking, and likely for the Narnians’ as well.

No, Peter thinks as he lies in bed one night, his reward was never meant to be a crown, or a throne, or even a title.

Well. Maybe not the title of “king,” anyways. But the title of “king-consort,” Peter thinks, is the best reward he ever could have received.

Even now, Peter blushes when he remembers that night. No sooner had Caspian heard the words “I’m staying” than he had flung himself at Peter to capture him in a kiss, and Peter had caught him just like he always had.

“With me?” Caspian had asked, even as he kept his lips pressed against Peter’s. “You’re staying with me?”

And Peter had laughed and pulled Caspian closer, one hand wrapped around his waist and the other buried in his hair. “Yes,” he whispered back. “With you, Caspian.”

When Caspian had finally pulled away, Peter could see starlight dancing in his dark eyes, and he still remembers the way his heart had stopped at the sight of it. It was the first time he had seen Caspian so truly and innocently happy—not happy in the way he was when they had survived another battle, or when their army had only suffered one or two casualties, but _happy,_ eager to celebrate and revel in his joy.

Peter remembers just as well how his heart had stopped for the second time in as many seconds when Caspian had asked him if he wanted to be married before or after the coronation. It wasn’t the proposal itself that had shocked him; Peter and his siblings had all made sure in their time as Narnia’s rulers that it was a far kinder land than England was. But Peter was freshly seventeen (he had long since stopped counting those fifteen years lost—Edmund had told him it was ridiculous to go around calling himself thirty-two when he still looked too young to serve in the Army), and even though he had fought witches and giants and every other monster under the sun, the idea of being married, even to Caspian, terrified him.

Caspian had looked heartbroken when Peter turned him down, but when Peter explained to him that people just didn’t marry at Peter’s age where he came from, that he only meant “not yet” and not “not ever,” he had cheered up a little.

Of course, Peter remembers with a soft chuckle, that hadn’t stopped Caspian from trying to change his mind anyway.

“You won’t have a title until you marry me,” Caspian had whispered against Peter’s neck the next night as they lay in the new King of Narnia’s bed, his voice low and teasing. “You’re just a subject in my kingdom until then.”

“Caspian,” Peter had answered with a low laugh, “I’m the High King of old, revived from a thousand years past to walk in Narnia again. Nobody’s going to mistake me for some commoner.”

Caspian had just nipped at Peter’s throat in response.

“Even still,” he murmured, while Peter sighed, “I am King now. The only title _you_ will wear from now on is ‘King-Consort,’ and not until you marry me.”

Peter had rolled them over and pinned Caspian’s hands to his sides.

“Nice try,” he had said with a smirk.

“Ask me again in a year.”

And Caspian had.

Peter is pulled out of his memories when Caspian rolls over to drape a sleep-heavy arm over his waist. Peter smiles to himself as he studies it, the faded scars that stripe Caspian’s skin here and there, the way his hand found the notch of Peter’s hip so easily, even in his sleep. Mostly, though, Peter studies the way the ring on Caspian’s finger glints in the candlelight. The little gold lion on it looks more cute than fierce in the low light, even with the sunburst design making a corona around its mane. Peter lifts his own hand and finds that the same can be said for the starlit wolf on his ring. (Wolves, Caspian had told him as he showed Peter the ring for the first time, were the only animals that Telmarines weren’t taught to hate or fear, because they were fierce warriors who were just as devoted to protecting those they loved as they were to victory in battle.)

With a sleepy, contented sigh, Peter reaches out to snuff out the candle on their nightstand. Then he wriggles under the sheets and presses closer to Caspian, wrapping an arm around his waist in return. Caspian smiles in his sleep and pulls Peter closer.

Yes, Peter thinks as he closes his eyes, his reward was not a crown or a kingdom to rule, but simply a ring and a title. And it’s a greater reward than anything Peter ever could have dreamed of.


End file.
